The entrance to Ukraine's Ukrnafta oil and gas extracting company HQ in Kiev, March 22, 2015 (Screenshot from RT's Ruptly video) / RT

The governor of Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk region, Igor Kolomoysky, claims he has helped secure the Kiev HQ of the national oil and gas extracting company “from raiders”. It comes days after he tried to regain control of an oil transportation company.

“The Ukrnafta
building on Nesterovskoye Lane is being barricaded with metal
barriers,” Ukraine MP Sergey Leschenko wrote on his Facebook
page. “On the street there are two members of an unknown
battalion. Inside, through darkened windows, another ten fighters
of an unknown battalion are visible. The guards refuse to show
their permit for the new fence,” Leschenko noted.

According to him, the men are all members of the Dnepr-1
battalion. However, the head of the group – “in a black
helmet” – refused to say “what the battalion of the
Dnepropetrovsk’s territorial defense was doing in Kiev.”

Deputy chairman of Ukrnafta, Victor Zakharov, announced that
there was no emergency situation and that the gunmen had been
deployed to guard the HQ while workers were erecting metal
fencing – all to prevent a “possible raid”. He added
that the armed group was a “security contractor,”
refusing to specify its name.

Later Kolomoysky personally confirmed the event was a
“routine anti-raider activity.” He also promised to
contact the prosecutor’s office, once journalists reminded him of
the legal method by which to handle expectations of an imminent
raid.

All of this, the MP wrote, is the oligarch’s “reaction on the
signing into law of the law on joint stock companies in reducing
the quorum. Ukrnafta, now barricaded, has a government share of
50 percent plus one share, but now for the first time in 12 years
it will be possible to ensure government management.”

Leschenko has also stressed that the current situation at
Ukrnafta should not be mistaken with Ukrtransnafta in Kiev,
another company that Kolomoysky and another several dozen of his
armed “lawyers” raided on Thursday in order to “drive
out the new chief from the office and forcefully reappoint his
own manager, Mr. Lazorko.”

Earlier the same day, the board of Ukrtransnafta relieved
Kolomoysky’s protégé Aleksandr Lazorko of his post and appointed
Yuri Miroshnik as CEO.

Lazorko refused to leave his post, protesting the decision, and
barricaded himself in the office until Kolomoysky and his men
entered the office and took it by force calling Lazorko’s
resignation a corporate raid. Later in the evening Interior
Minister Arsen Avakov reported the building was under control of
the police.

On Saturday, Ukrainian media reported that Kolomoysky’s
Privatbank had blocked Poroshenko’s account of $50 million.
However, bank officials say that it was just a glitch.

Ukrnafta is the biggest oil company of the country which deals
with over 86 percent of Ukraine's oil production, 28 percent of
gas condensate production and 16 percent of gas production. The
controlling stake of the company belongs to the state-owned
Naftogaz company, while 42 percent of shares belong to Igor
Kolomoysky.

According to Leschenko, this is the first moment in Ukrnafta’s
history when government management in the company can be
established.

Kolomoysky is one of the richest men in Ukraine with an estimated
wealth of up to $6 billion. According to Forbes his net worth is
$3bn. Some of his wealth is rumored to have emerged from numerous
hostile takeovers of his competitors.

Amid last year’s coup and the turmoil surrounding it Kolomoysky
used his wealth to secure political power. Then-acting President
Aleksandr Turchynov appointed him as a governor of Dnepropetrovsk
region. The oligarch used his newly gained powers to stem the
so-called “Russian influence” in his area.

Kolomoysky also is believed to have created the ultra-nationalist
Dnipro Battalion. Basically forming his own personal army,
Kolomoysky also funded the Aidar, Azov, Dnepr 1, Dnepr 2, and
Donbas volunteer battalions, which were accused of carrying out
mass atrocities.

In Russia the oligarch is sought for “organizing the killing of
civilians,” as last summer a Russian District Court authorized
his arrest in absentia.